Method of uniting railway-rails.



F. LANGE.

METHOD 0F. UN|TING RAILWAY RAILS.

'. APPLICATION FILED DEC-27. 1912'.

l Batlited Sept. 14,1915.

FELIX LANGE, ESSEN-ON-'TI- IE-RUHR, GERMANY, ASSIGNOR T GOLDSGHMIDHI' "TIIER'MI'T comm, NEW YORK, N. Y., A CORPORATION OF NEW YORK.

. MET-HOD UNITING RAILWAY-RAILS,

risaass.

To all whom it mag concern .Be it knownthat I, .Fnnm Lanes, a sub ject of the Kingof Prussia, and a resident of Essen-on-th e-Ruhr, in the Province of the Rhine, German Empire, have invented certain new and :useful' Improvements in Methods of "Uniting Railway R-ails, of

which the following is an exact specification. In order to unite tramway-ra ls, an aluminothermic weldingmethod has been tance of about 15 to 20 millimeters apart and the intervening space was filled with iron produced by the alumi'nothermic proeess. This method of uniting the rail ends resulted in a part of the rail ends being fused by the liquid iron poured'intothe intervening space aforesaid, so that in the joint obtainedthe tread of the ra l head was interrupted by a filling-of aluminoth'ermic iron, the length-of which was about 6 centimeters. Now, practical experience has shown that the intermediate piece of alu-' minothermic iron generally becomes worn away to a greater extent than the rail ltself. It has proved to be extremely diflicult to make the resistance capacity or durability of the, aluminothermiciron filling equalto thatof the rail itself but this disadvantage is overcome by the present invention.

The new or improved method of uniting rail ends consists in inserting into the space between the head portions of the rail ends an intermediatepiece of the same material as that from which the rails are formed and then performing the casting .in the inter mediate space in known manner. 'It has-already been proposed-to lIlSBIt' an 1ntermediate short length of rail into the space between the ends of two rails, the short length having the same cross section as the rails themselves, but 1t was impossible to obtain,

' according to this'method a real homogeneous union of the heads of the rail with the head of the inserted short length of rail, because the welding of the head was only effected by the slag resulting from 'the'faluminothermic reaction.

The present method differs from the previous method inasmuch-as the interme diate piece of metal inserted into'the joint only covers part of the section of' the rail head, whereasthe whole remaining part of the space is filled up with aluminothermic Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented Sept. let 1915.

Application filed December 27, 1912. Serial No. 738,789;

. iron. The improved method is carried out,

forinstance, in such a manner that a piece of metal of the same character as that from which the rails themselves are "formed and corresponding more or less-to the cross sectionof the heads of the rail ends is inseuted between the heads of the rail ends which rigidlyplaced and are afterward surrounded by a mold. The inserted pieee'and the rail ends are then subjected to a preheating, as described for instance. in of U. S. Patent No. 900,366 of 19018, and

then liquid iron resulting from an alumino-' vthermic 'or similar reaction is poured into the mold. The iron flows around the internfidiate piece of metal and a perfect-homogeneous union of the tread or head portion of the rail ends is obtained, and the said iron the specification fills the remainder of the intermediate space between the rail ends. In this way it is pos- -s1ble to introduce into the tread, which is subjected to wear and tear by, the-rolling stock,- a material whichhas a capacity for resisting-such wear and tear or a durability equal to that of the rail'itself.

Toenable the mode of carrying the present invention into practice to "be readily understood reference is made to the accompanying drawing which shows part of the section of a rail end which is to be joined to .a similar rail end together with the intermediate vpiece of metal which is inserted into the space between the end surfaces of the head portions of such rail' ends.

' In the drawing a is the rail end, '6 is the inserted metal piece and c is the mold having holes d and 6 one of which may act as a pouring hole andthe other as a riser in known manner.

The inserted piece I) is somewhat of inverted L-shape but other shapes may be used. In the exampleshown the piece b is of such a shape and is so disposed as to lie between the thickest portions of the heads ofthe rail ends and so that its upper edge lies'about flush with or a little above the plane 'containing the actual treadsurface of therails.

. pressing together or sa'called'jumping action by means ofa clamping device inorder v to obtain a good union.v This drawing togetl er of the rails is not necessary according to the present improved method but is replaced bythe contraction of the iron form I mg a bulge around the rail and of the intermediate casting applied to the web and foot of the rail and to the exterior parts of the tread. It will 'be apparent from the drawing that there is no filling of cast metal in the actual tread surface which prevents an unbroken wearing face of wealr-and-tezir resisting metal owing to the presence of the between the two rail ends.

' o What I claim is:

upper edge of the metal piece I) in the gap 1. A -method of uniting railway rails,

which consists in inserting between the head portions only of the rails an intermediate piece of metal of such width as to extend across that part only of the headsof the rails which are subjected to wear by the car I 2 wheels andofa' character corresponding to that'of the metal from which the railsare formed, and then fusing said intermediate piece of metal together with the rail ends.'

2. A method of uniting railwayrails, which consists in inserting between the head portions only of the rails an intermediate piece of metal of such width as to extend across that part only at the heads of the which are subjected to wear by the car wheels and of a character corresponding to that of the metal from which the rails are formed, and then filling up the remaining part of the space between the rail ends'with liquid iron; p p

3. A method of uniting rails, which consists in inserting between the headportionsi 40 only of the rails, an intermediate piece of- FELIX LANGE. a 8.1

Witnesses: ALBERT NUFER,

' HELEN NUFER. 

